


We Don't Fight Fair

by pcrrycox



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Paramore
Genre: Biological Warfare, F/M, Post-Apocalypse, Seattle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pcrrycox/pseuds/pcrrycox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seattle, though populous and crowded, was a normal city in a normal state in a normal country. Crimes were committed, criminals were caught and taken into custody, and all the while, people were going about their business.  Why Seattle was targeted, no one could really say. Sure, it was densely populated and was a hub of activity, but it did not house anything of great importance to the U.S. Government. As the city fell, the few survivors left banded together and tried to escape, but the city had been barricaded by the EPA to prevent the spread of disease. People were crawling on the streets, shielding their mouths and noses with their shirts or hands, trying to find a place of safety, though everyone knew full well there would be no such thing come morning.  Only small groups of survivors were left. One of these groups consisted of Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Hayley Williams, Brendon Urie, and Sarah Orzechowski.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Don't Fight Fair

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this as a final for my environmental science class. Of course, I'm making it longer and changing some of the wording, but because I'm sneaky, I used band members' names with no one the wiser! Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Seattle, though populous and crowded, was a normal city in a normal state in a normal country. Crimes were committed, criminals were caught and taken into custody, and all the while, people were going about their business. Businessmen and -women carpooled to the office, vendors set up their stands on the sidewalks, struggling musicians set down their tip jar, and shops and restaurants opened. Everything was normal, and had been until that day.  
Why Seattle was targeted, no one could really say. Sure, it was densely populated and was a hub of activity, but it did not house anything of great importance to the U.S. Government. As the city fell, the few survivors left banded together and tried to escape, but the city had been barricaded by the EPA to prevent the spread of disease. People were crawling on the streets, shielding their mouths and noses with their shirts or hands, trying to find a place of safety, though everyone knew full well there would be no such thing come morning.  
It was late in the afternoon, when the many aforementioned businessmen and -women were carpooling or taking taxis home that it happened. Everyone had gone about their day as normal, their routines firmly embedded into their very beings. Heads were blurry from the amount of paperwork that had been processed, and for another day, everyone had ignored the hollow, empty feeling inside themselves. It had been just another day in just another week in just another month. Everything had become monotonous, and yet, someone somewhere in the city was just starting a career or getting a new lease on life, their optimism shining bright in their eyes. Babies were born and people died. One door opened as another closed – the balance of life staying firm. No one suspected anything to happen that day, just as they never expected anything to happen any other day of their boring lives. Today was different, though.  
It started when Patrick was in a taxi, stuck on the major highway heading out of Seattle. His buddies had gotten stuck in traffic on their way to pick him up, so he decided to take a taxi to the bar where they usually got together every Friday evening. He heard a faint whirring sound overhead, so he stuck his head out the window, a cool autumn breeze hitting his face. He saw a single jet in the sky, and thought nothing of it. But the sound was growing louder, and he could see black on the horizon. Squinting and adjusting his square, black-framed glasses. The sound grew louder yet, and the mass of black came closer. Patrick's eyes widened as the taxicab inched forward on the freeway.  
“Holy –” gasped the cabbie, taking off his hat, his mouth gaping open.  
“What is it?” Patrick asked, still unsure of what the mass was.  
“Something I ain't stickin' 'round to see,” muttered the cabbie, grabbing his hat, opening the door, and bolting, weaving through the thousands of cars on the freeway.  
Patrick didn't know what to do. He tensed with his hand on the door handle, still squinting to try and make out what was coming toward Seattle. He was on edge – whatever it was had the cabbie scared enough to miss out on a great fare.  
“Oh . . . my . . . God.” Patrick threw open the door to the backseat of the cab and, in nearly the same fashion as the cabbie, bolted.  
* * *  
Brendon had stayed home to take care of his wife, who was sick with some sort of viral bug. It had been going around her office, so she hadn't been surprised when she'd caught it, but Brendon hadn't wanted to leave her alone to fend for herself. He had been heating her a bowl of soup when everything began. He heard the familiar sound of a plane flying over their house – they lived right under the path of planes coming in to land at Tacoma International. He carried the bowl of soup into his and Sarah's bedroom, only to find her standing at the window. She turned when Brendon entered the room, her baggy eyes wide with shock and her hand covering her mouth.  
“What's wrong?” Brendon asked in confusion. He set the bowl of soup down on Sarah's nightstand. “Why aren't you in bed?”  
Sarah shook her head. “Look,” she told him, beckoning him to the window.  
“What the –”  
The sky turned black as a barrage of jets flew over Seattle, and whatever they were carrying was released. This wasn't right, and Brendon's instincts kicked in. He grabbed a duffel from underneath his and Sarah's bed and jammed a few changes of clothes into it, along with a few other necessities.  
“Come on,” he called over the roar of the jets. “We have to go now!” He grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her out the door.  
* * *  
Pete's phone rang as he mumbled the words to a new song he was working on while working out the cords on his guitar.  
“Hmm?” he answered.  
“Pete!” the other voice called. He could tell whoever it was was yelling, but the background noise was so great that it was difficult to hear.  
“Patrick?”  
“Where are you right now?” Patrick called.  
“At home, obviously. You called my house phone.”  
“Shut up and listen to me. Grab whatever you can and throw it in a duffel. Get out of there now. Meet me at my house. Cover you face with something. Don't drive – you'll never get through.”  
“Patrick, you feelin' okay, man? You back on drugs?” Pete laughed, scratching out some of the lyrics he'd written on the piece of paper before him.  
“Pete! If you have ever trusted me before, you need to trust me now. I'm not joking. There's some kind of biological warfare going on. There's thousands of jets up in the sky and they're releasing something. People are dropping everywhere. You have to get out now. My house is boarded up already. Nothing can get in unless I want it to. You have to get here.”  
Pete looked out the window and his jaw dropped. “You're not joking,” was all he could say.  
“Not at all.”  
“I'm on my way,” said Pete, placing his guitar on his chair and heading for his closet in search of a duffel. He hung up with Patrick and began shoving necessities into the bag. “The world just keeps getting more and more messed up.”   
* * *  
Hayley had just gotten off the phone with her mother when she heard the whirring sound outside her open living room window. She told her mother she'd call her back and went to the window, sticking her head out to look at the sky. Just then, the sky blackened and a sinister shadow came over the west side of the city.   
“What on earth?” muttered Hayley as she watched a black mass move across the previously clear sky. Then she heard the screams. People on the street were crying out, holding their faces. She caught glimpses of their skin – red, charred, and blistering right before her very eyes.  
Hayley pulled out her phone and called her best friend's phone. He would know what to do.  
Pete answered his phone on the first ring. “Hello?” he gasped through his t-shirt. He had followed Patrick's advice and slung his duffel over his shoulder and was jogging to Patrick's house with his t-shirt covering his face. Even so, he could feel his flesh – what was even the word for it? Burning? Either way, it was awful.  
“Pete?” Hayley said through the phone, barely able to hear Pete over the screaming outside her now closed window.  
“Hayley, grab everything you can and meet me at Patrick's. Cover your face and run as fast as you can.”  
He hung up and Hayley did exactly as she was told. After slight hesitation, she left the safety of her home with just a backpack of whatever necessities she needed and began her run the thirty-five city blocks to Patrick's house.   
* * *  
Pete got to Patrick's house within fifteen minutes, but his skin was crawling and he had burns all over his face, but thanks to Patrick's orders, he hadn't inhaled too much.  
“Where –”   
“Basement,” Patrick answered, starting to board his back door up again.  
“Wait,” Pete said. “Hayley's coming, too.”  
“Oh, good,” Patrick sighed. He could only imagine how many of his friends had gotten caught in this.  
Nearly half an hour later, there was a knock on Patrick's back door, and both Patrick and Pete jumped up and hurried to the door. Hayley stumbled through the doorway and into Pete's arms, and he managed to catch her before she lost consciousness.   
“We need to get in the basement,” Patrick insisted, opening the door for Pete, who managed to navigate the stairs while carrying Hayley.  
Patrick's basement was windowless, but extremely well-lit, as it was where his makeshift recording studio was, along with the guys' favorite hangout – the man cave. Pete laid Hayley on one of the three leather couches in the den, and both Pete and Patrick gasped upon seeing her face. If Pete's face had been burnt, it was nothing compared to Hayley's. Her skin was so raw that it was bleeding in several spots, and her expression, even in unconsciousness, was twisted in pain.   
“What do we do?” Patrick asked, his concern evident in his wavering voice.   
“You're asking me?” Pete half-yelled, half-laughed. “You're the one who's the expert on the apocalypse!”  
“I was just following my instincts!” Patrick cried defensively. “If you don't recall, I saved your life!”  
Pete shook his head. “I know, I know. I'm just worried about Hayley. How far away d'you think her apartment is from here?”  
Patrick shrugged. “Thirty blocks?”  
“Do you think she'll be okay?”  
“I don't know . . .”  
* * *  
Brendon had gotten less than a mile before the roads became too congested to drive.   
“Do you think you can walk?” he asked Sarah.  
“I can try,” she answered weakly.  
Sarah opened her door and Brendon, after grabbing their bags from the backseat, came around to help her. She was able to walk, but was slightly unsteady on her feet. She had eaten very little since she had gotten sick, and was weak. She leaned on Brendon for support, but whatever strength she'd had was diminishing rapidly. They'd made it three blocks when Sarah fell. Brendon helped her up, supporting almost her entire body and growing alarmed by the red patches appearing on her face.   
“Just a little longer. Patrick lives around here,” Brendon said repeatedly, trying to encourage Sarah to keep going.  
After another block, Brendon was practically dragging Sarah, whose legs could barely move.   
“Brendon,” she gasped, “you have to keep going. Just leave me.”  
“No way. We're gonna find out what happened and you're gonna be perfectly fine.”  
Sarah shook her head and looked up at Brendon, who was staring determinedly ahead.  
“Brendon,” she said again, “I love you so much. You have your friends to lean on. You'll be fine. You can –” Her words were cut off by a vicious coughing spell that ended in Sarah gasping for breath as she coughed up blood into her hand.  
“No,” Brendon breathed through clenched teeth, his voice thick with emotion. He gathered a nearly unconscious Sarah into his arms and restarted his journey to Patrick's house, another two blocks away.  
* * *  
“Do you hear that?” Pete asked suddenly from his seat by Patrick's computer.   
“What?” Patrick replied, straining to hear whatever Pete had. He heard it, too. A faint yell was coming from outside, barely penetrating the thick concrete walls of Patrick's basement.   
“I'll go look,” Patrick said. “You stay with Hayley.” Pete moved over to the couch cushion next to Hayley and continued dabbing a damp washcloth on her face. That had been Patrick's idea.   
Patrick made his way upstairs, where the yelling grew louder. It was his own name being called. There was only one other person who would be outside his house. Patrick managed to get his front door open after breaking some of the boards he had placed over it.   
Brendon was standing at the foot of Patrick's front steps, his face nearly as bad as Hayley's, with his wife Sarah in his arms, who didn't look good at all.   
“Come on,” Patrick said, ushering them in. “Downstairs,” he said, pointing toward the open basement door as he began hammering the boards back into place.   
Downstairs, Pete was slightly surprised to see Brendon carrying Sarah in the same fashion he'd carried Hayley. The last time Brendon and Pete had seen each other, they had not been on good terms. In the moment that Pete saw Sarah's condition, all bad blood was forgotten. The words that had been traded like spears were forgotten and all that mattered was saving the girls' lives.   
Patrick came downstairs five minutes later, this time carrying a large duffel bag. “Food,” he said in response to Pete's confused expression.   
Brendon had eyes only for Sarah. “She won't wake up,” he muttered.  
At that moment, Hayley sputtered awake, groaning in pain. “My face,” she moaned.  
“You're okay,” Pete reassured her, helping her sit up as her eyes adjusted to the fluorescent lighting. “You're in Patrick's basement.”  
“I didn't kidnap you, though,” Patrick half-laughed. “Nothing creepy.”  
At that, Hayley chuckled a little, but the small smile turned into a grimace. She raised a hand to her face. “Ugh,” she hissed. “Do you have any Tylenol?”   
Patrick tossed her a bottle and she downed two pills without water. Finally, she took inventory of her surroundings. Patrick was sitting near the closed basement door, moving his spinning chair back and forth slightly. Pete was right next to her, watching her with concern. Brendon was sitting on the couch furthest from her, gently running a hand through Sarah's hair.   
“What happened to Sarah?” Hayley asked no one in particular.  
“She was already sick, and she collapsed two or three blocks before we got here,” Brendon answered, his voice shaking.   
Hayley got up and moved over to the couch where Sarah lay. She made it look like she was holding Sarah's hand in her own, but she was checking for a pulse. From the other couch, Hayley hadn't been able to see Sarah's chest rise and fall with even the most shallow breath. There was no pulse. She looked up at Brendon with watery, pity-filled eyes.   
“Maybe she'll pull through,” she said half-heartedly. “Pete, let's go upstairs and bring down some more food.”  
Pete followed her diligently, and neither of them spoke until they were in Patrick's pantry.   
“Pete,” she breathed, her voice catching in her throat, “Sarah's dead. There's no pulse, no breathing. He's waiting for a corpse to regain consciousness.” Hayley put her hand over her mouth as a few tears escaped her eyes. Pete wiped them away.  
“How can we tell him? He'll be devastated,” Pete sighed.  
“I know. We can't just let him think she'll wake up, though. That'd be even more cruel.”  
“Guys!” came a cry from the basement.  
Hayley and Pete shared one look before they both bolted back downstairs.


End file.
